


Snow Has Friz Me (But I'm Still Here)

by some1_around



Series: 5+1 Tony Fics [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst and Humor, Arc Reactor Issues, Awesome Jarvis (Iron Man movies), Chirstmas Fluff - Freeform, Fix-It, Fluff, Friendship, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt Tony Stark, Iron Man 3, Kid Tony Stark, M/M, OT6, OT7, Snow, Winter, bad relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 18:17:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5794777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/some1_around/pseuds/some1_around
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Tony Stark hated snow and one time he thought it might just be his (second) favorite thing in the world.</p><p><em>The entire city shuts down. Roads are closed. Windows are boarded. Every available blanket is gathered.</em> </p><p> </p><p>  <em>Overnight, the grey city that never sleeps turns white and not a sound can be heard.</em></p><p>(Can be read as a stand-alone)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Langston Hughes' poem "Still Here"

1.

He’s hardly two the first time Tony sees real snow. Sure, he’s been out in the light dustings that isn’t strong enough to even stick to his hair, and even once when there was just enough to leave shallow footprints on the ground. But nothing like this.

The entire city shuts down. Roads are closed. Windows are boarded. Every available blanket is gathered.

Overnight, the grey city that never sleeps turns white and not a sound can be heard.

It really is beautiful, but when Tony stumbles outside to see it for the first time it’s because one of the maids forget to lock the door and Jarvis is making his lunch, so he’s alone outside in the silent world and without a coat.

When Jarvis finally finds Tony after a frantic scramble, the child’s fingertips are blue and his tears are frozen on his cheeks. The butler wants to take Tony to the hospital but Howard says if anyone recognizes Tony then SI stocks will drop terribly.

When Jarvis inevitably loses the fight, he sighs, makes a fire in Tony’s room, wraps them both up in thick blankets, Tony on his lap, gets an enormous bowl or popcorn and puts on Tony’s favorite movie, and they cuddle for a few hours until Tony can feel his fingers again.

Tony likes the cuddling and the popcorn all very well, but he decides that if he can help it, he’s never going to touch snow again.

2.

He can't help it, of course, but he gets almost a decade and a half into his promise without any more incidents of the like.

The campus isn’t still in the same way the city was all those years ago – there’s freshman physics majors sledding down the sides of the hills on garbage lids and cafeteria trays, a group of junior engineering students assembling complicated and structurally sound snow igloos, and the seniors on the college football team are waging all out war via snowballs.

Rhodey managed to drag Tony out of their dorm room where he’d been hauled up, determined not set one foot in the powdery white crystals, but weaker men then him have fallen to James Rhodes’ puppy-eyes.

He and Rhodey are constructing snow angels, something Tony has never done before to his friend’s shock and horror, giggling like little children and really, it’s a lot of fun.

Then Tiberius shows up.

“Fuck off,” Rhodey snarls when the burly senior tromps over to them. Tony stares downwards at the snow on his boots.

Ty snorts and wraps a jacket-clad arm around Tony’s shoulders tightly – too tightly in Tony’s opinion, but he doesn’t say anything. Ty is standing on his angel. “Sorry Jack,” Ty sneers, purposefully getting Rhodey’s name wrong. “Me and Tones have places to be.”

Ty drags him off before Rhodey can say anything and Tony chooses not to say anything, just watches the way his feet drag through the snow, leaving behind physical imprints of his absolute inability to fight back. His weakness.

And just like that, Tony starts to hate snow again.

 

3.

 

Malibu is nice. Malibu is warm. Winter in Malibu hardly ever brings the thermometer below 50 degrees and within his mansion Tony is never outside his comfort zone. He’d checked and double-checked all of this before moving out, made sure that the West Coast was the right climate he wanted to live in. It was perfect.

So, as his luck goes, the year he moves down to Malibu the city is overcome by the biggest snowstorm it’s seen in fifty years.

The twenty-three-year-old seethes in his lab for the first two days of the cold front, cursing his life and his luck because this isn’t fair. He creates a new product that he knows will make him millions and then sits in his lab, twirling a wrench between his fingers and contemplating what life decisions he’s made that he’s sitting down here, alone, scarred of a little frozen water.

With a huff he stands up, putting the wrench down with a clang and jogs up the stairs of his house. He’s Tony fucking Stark – billionaire, genius, playboy. What’s a little snow to someone like him?

Tony throws open the door and looks around his front lawn. The snow’s only about one or two inches high and Tony puffs up his chest with confidence. It might be record breaking snow, but this is, after all, sill Malibu. Tony can do this, what was he worried about? Little bit of snow enough to send him running. He laughs at himself and strides out of the door, a grin spreading over his face-

And promptly falls on his ass, his elbow colliding with a snap on his cement walkway, because apparently he used up all his genius to design the cellular phone, and he forgot that such a thing as _ice_ existed.

He glares darkly at the snow as the paramedics drive him away in an ambulance to get his arm casted and set, thinking _You win again, my old foe._

So yes, Tony’s a little melodramatic.

Whatever. Doesn’t change the fact that snow _sucks_.

4.

Tony winces and curls into himself a little more as he hurries down the sidewalk, cupping one hand over his chest. He hadn't considered metal’s high conductivity before venturing out of the Tower today – his first time out in the snow since he’s gotten the reactor – and currently it feels like he’s got an ice block burning away at his torso from the center of his chest. It’s not pleasant, to say the least.

The metal is usually cool, or at least cooler than the room, and he’d briefly considered that maybe going outside when it’s far below freezing might make that worse, but he’d figured that with his coat and the amount of feeling he lost after the impromptu surgery in that damned cave, he’d be okay.

Really, one of these days Tony was going to have to actually earn his title of genius.

One arm was wrapped painfully tight around his chest, his teeth gritted and eyes pressed shut as he hurried through the streets, trying to keep his mind off the searing pain of cold digging into his chest, pressing right up against his heart.

_Frozen heart. Ha._

Tony coughed up a ruff laugh and looked up to see his tower at the end of the street. A smile cracked along his dried lips, but it dropped immediately when a single snowflake landed on his eyelashes.

Tony hit it off with a hiss, as though it was physically offending him and picked up his pace.

He hated the snow almost as much as he hated the hunk of metal sitting in his chest, and that said a lot.

5. 

With a sigh, Tony hangs up the payphone and leans against the side of the booth, breath fogging up the glass. He shivers a little and wraps the blanket tighter around his shoulders. He hopes Pepper gets his message soon.

After a moment he sighs and pushes off the fuzzy scratched glass of the enclosed space and stumbles out into the cold air. Tennessee is a hell of a lot colder than Malibu or New York, and Tony doesn’t like the change. Especially since all he has for a jacket it the poncho he stole from the wooden Native American, a circumstance he has decided not to question.

Stumbling out of the payphone booth, Tony grabbed hold of his pseudo-sled of Iron Man armor with cold numbed fingers and began to drag, leaving crude indents in the snow that would soon be filled in with the dusting of flakes still falling from the sky.

It felt like the snow was trying to bury the world, silence it once again. The snowflakes looked pretty, but they could be as deadly as a poison, or like a gaping hole in the sky leading to another plane of existence that the human eye at this stage was no meant to see, silent and unescapable-

As deadly as a poison. Tony decided he would stick with that.

He ignored the way snowflakes began to stick to his skin and hair without melting, ignored the way his fingers felt like if he gave one more tug on the sled they’d fall right off. Ignored it all and kept trudging.

After all, that’s what snow forces you to do – survive.


	2. Chapter 2

They’re piled on the couch together, limbs sprawled and hopelessly tangled together, watching _The Polar Express_ because Steve, Bucky, and Thor have never seen it and watching the movie with Jarvis when he was little made the movie forever one of Tony’s favorites. Outside, the city lights sparkle like stars or diamonds, and when Tony tilts his head, he can see the reflections in his teammates eyes, like salt spilled across a black counter top. The night sky and the stars don’t scare Tony so much anymore, not now that he has his team – his family, who he knows will always pull him back if he ever starts to drift too far away. He feels safe. Protected. Warm.

Tony is lying on Thor, his back nestled against Clint’s chest, his feet on Steve’s lap, who’s cuddling up to Bucky who’s lying with Natasha practically wrapped around his shoulders, and Bruce has his head pillowed against Natasha’s thighs. Everyone is touching everyone and Tony feels guarded from every direction – he might be the only non-spy puny human in there group, but Tony no longer feels anxious about being the weakest one. How can you classify him as weak when he’s got two super-soldiers, one of which is half-cyborg, a god, a rage-monster, and a pair of spy/assassins all sharpening their knives in preparation for the next time their villain of the week is stupid enough to try and single Tony out?

You can't, really, so Tony’s pretty fucking content.

That is, until Clint bolts into an upright position, toppling Tony forwards and off the couch. Lucky for him, Thor had an arm around his waist and he’s caught before he can hit the hard floor and turned around to see Thor’s amusedly smiling face. Tony sticks his tongue out at the god – and lord, who would have thought that phrase would be everyday commonplace for him? – before looking up questioningly at Clint.

“Sorry, Tones,” Clint apologizes quickly, pressing a sloppy kiss to Tony’s cheek, but he’s jittering with excitement and squirming his way out of the pile. “Guys, look!” he says excitedly, gesturing one arm to the floor-to-ceiling windows behind the enormous screen they’re watching the movie on. “It’s snowing!”

“What?” Bucky’s head pops up into view over Thor’s monster thighs, eyes trained out the window. His face breaks into a huge grin and he pulls himself off the couch, dragging Natasha with him, and stands up, immediately heading to the balcony doors. Natasha gracefully adjusts herself so she’s sitting straight-up on Bucky’s shoulders and ducks her head smoothly when Bucky throws open the glass doors to Tony wide balcony and steps out, one hand reaching up to catch the thickly falling snowflakes.

Tony feels unreasonable dread begin to curl in his stomach. He’s a grown ass man, and he’s scared of a little snow? What bullshit. He’s a genius, billionaire, superhero, with six of the most desirable people on the planet as his partners. What the fuck is he doing, letting his feelings be so childish?

Thor stands up, setting Tony back down on the couch as he moves towards the windows with the rest of the team, happy rumbling laughter falling from his lips as he watches the frankly enormous snowflakes fall down and get caught in his hair. It’s already starting to stick to the balcony floor and Clint bending down to try and scrape together a snowball with the meager supplies. Bucky laughs happily and scoops up a handful of the powder and shoves it down the back of Steve’s shirt in what is clearly a familiar ritual. Steve stiffens and yelps indignantly before whirling on Bucky and tackling him to the floor, smearing snow all over the other super-soldier’s back. They end up making out, of course.

Bruce is standing by the railing, watching the team mess around in the snow with a fond smile playing on his lips. He catches Tony’s gaze, the genius still sitting on the couch, now alone, the movie paused. He raises an eyebrow and smirks, before raising his hand and beckoning Tony out.

Tony slowly shakes his head and looks at the others. Bucky and Steve have predictably moved on to wrestling, neither bothered by the snow’s cold with their super fast metabolisms that basically make them walking furnaces. Not that Tony minds – it feels good on the reactor anyways. Soothes a few aches. Natasha is standing on Clint’s shoulders with perfect balance, and both of them have their tongues out, catching the fat snowflakes on the pink muscle. Thor is using his powers to make the snow fall faster, laughing joyfully as the snow picks up and creates a few inches deep on the decking within seconds.

Tony shivers when a draft of cold wisps in through the open doors and catches him. He grabs a blanket off the floor and wraps it around his shoulders, wincing as he feels the cold begin to chill the metal in his chest already.

When Tony looks back to Bruce, the doctor is watching him with concerned eyes, so Tony huffs and stands up, walking forward until he’s standing in the doorway, toes touching the snow. Thor’s magic is working incredibly well because there’s already a good three inches down and it’s growing. Tony’s needs to make sure Thor’s keeping the mini snowstorm to the balcony, or the city’s going to buried under several feet by morning. Tony lets out a low hiss through his teeth and wraps the blanket tighter around his shoulders, folding his arms so his forearms are pressed right against the slowly freezing metal.

Clint’s moved on to helping Bucky build a snow man, the base nearly complete, and Thor’s snow must have actual magical properties because snow never sticks that perfectly. Natasha’s leaning against Bruce and watching Clint and Bucky fall all over themselves with a fond smile. Thor is throwing snowballs off the top of the Tower in the direction of central park and Steve is calling out scores for each throw.

Tony smiles unconsciously, the terrible feeling of the arc reactor pushing against his lungs and the uncomfortable squishiness of wet snow under his bare toes fading for a moment as he watches his family screw around, laughing and playing and having fun. He meets Steve’s gaze across the space, and his eyes look so blue against the white, and there’s white sparkles caught in his eyelashes and hair. He’s so beautiful, he truly looks like an angel. They all do, even Bruce, wrapped up in an old quilt with his hair musses up.

 _His_ angels.

He lets his arms drop, warm and fuzzy feelings crawling up his stomach, but within moments the warmth is cancelled out by a sudden and sharp searing pain in his chest.

Tony drops to his knees with a gasp, hands flying to his chest. It’s not even a full to seconds before he’s surrounded on every side by his family.

“Tony? Tony, what’s wrong?” Bruce asks, kneeling in front of him, fingers pressed to his bouncing pulse point.

Tony shudders and tries to rap his arms tighter around himself as his teeth chatter. “R-reactor,” he pushes out through the clattering, and he sees understanding dawn in Bruce’s eyes, though the rest still look confused and worried.

“Steve,” Bruce says, and pulls on Steve’s arm, “I need you.”

Steve comes willingly and lets Bucky maneuver his arm so the warm muscle is pressed firmly against the ice-cold metal in Tony’s chest. “You idiot,” Bruce chastises as he shoos Tony and Steve back into the living room. “What were you thinking?”

“Y-y-you g-guys look-ked like y-you wer-re h-hav-ving f-fun,” Tony chatters, even though Steve, who’s temperature is probably a good hundred and four, is now pressed firmly against his back and his arm is slowly seeping the cold out of the reactor.

Natasha gets it next, and she slaps the back of Tony’s head as they settle back down on the couch. “идиот,” she accuses, but cuddles up to his side anyway. “Get a coat next time.”

“What’s going on?” asks Bucky worriedly, standing hesitantly in front of Tony and scanning him up and down for injuries.

“M-metal conducts thermal energy a lot quicker than human skin, and the reactor isn’t as easily t-treated as your arm,” Tony says, and when he gets a blank look in return simplifies it to “The reactor gets painfully cold very quickly in snow.”

Bucky looks at him for a moment before snorting. “Dumbass,” he accuses, and since Tony isn’t shivering anymore, pulls him up. “Steve, keep your arm around him,” he directs, and turns to go back outside, throwing a smirk over his shoulder when the team hesitates.

Tony chuckles when the others look at him questioningly, tugging on Steve’s arm. “I’ve got my super-soldier heater now,” he jests, leaning back against Steve’s firm chest. “I’ll be okay.”

They move back on the porch, but this time Tony puts on his sneakers before going out. Clint and Bucky continue they’re snowman, and Thor helps. Natasha begins to make a smaller version of the snowman while Clint ducks inside to find scarves and hats to decorate their creation. Tony stares when Natasha drops hers of the balcony.

She shrugs. “I’m sacrificing it to the snow gods so they’ll give us more snow,” she says calmly, and Tony can't stop laughing.

Steve laughs with him and makes sure never to move his arm too far away from the center of Tony’s chest, and it works so well at keeping to cold out Tony is amazed.

Now that the reactor isn’t killing him and he’s warm, Tony’s kind of beginning to wonder what he ever had against snow. Sure, he’s had some bad experiences but… they all look so beautiful covered in the white powder. And Tony hasn’t seen them look so happy in a while.

He thinks maybe the fact that he hasn’t felt this peaceful in such a long time is making him hope the snow lasts for the rest of the week at least, and maybe he kind of loves snow, now that he has his team to protect him from the harsh side of it.

And when Clint shoves a ball of snow down Bucky’s pants and Bucky retaliates by shoving the snowman’s head over Clint’s own, Tony thinks snow just became his favorite thing in the world.

Well. His _eighth_ favorite thing technically, but still.

That’s pretty good.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
